Illumina
To be honest, this engagement tested me in a lot of ways. What should one expect, however, from working with a company whose mission is this huge: to improve human life by unlocking the power of the genome? The biggest thing I learned was how to write scripts. Lots of them. Below are a few of my favorites.
Ancient DNA and Our Own Mental Health
The Illumina PR team and I collaborated to write, direct, and produce this video with renowned geneticist, Eske Willerslev. His work studying the DNA from 10,000-year-old bones and teeth to unlock mysteries for our mental health today is nothing short of fascinating.
Agriculture Across the Globe
Here, I began with raw transcripts from interviews with three scientists from all over the world. Then I pulled out the key moments to tell the story of how the NovaSeq 6000 allows them to sequence large genomes in a short amount of time.
Sequencing Newly Discovered Species
“It was like discovering a brontosaurus for botanists.”
Wow!
Okay, but as a writer, how do you break down pages and pages of excited scientists talking about this incredible breakthrough discovery into a simple story of the way Illumina’s sequencer made it possible?
So Much Data!
I’ll admit, not the most enthralling YouTube video. Unless, of course, you’re a potential Illumina customer, and in that case, one of your primary concerns will be, what in the world am I going to do with all this data? Here’s how Helix was able to scale rapidly into one of the largest human exome sequencing operations in the world using BaseSpace™ Sequence Hub, and how, as the writer, I pulled from another interview transcript to easily tell that story.